1. TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates generally to inventory management for a migration, such as an information technology migration, and more particularly, to a solution for storing and displaying a history of modifications to the inventory data and/or the forecast data of one or more components during the migration.
2. BACKGROUND ART
In information technology (IT), a “migration” is a change from one hardware and/or software technology to another. A migration may be performed for various reasons, and typically includes one or more hardware/software components being migrated (e.g., installed, removed, replaced, upgraded, patched, etc.) on one or more targets (e.g., computers, workstations, etc.). To this extent, a migration may synchronize the software/hardware for all users in a company, enable an IT infrastructure to accommodate more users, modernize the IT infrastructure, etc. For example, an entity (e.g., a company) may migrate each user's computer from one operating system (e.g., Windows® XP®) to another operating system (e.g., Linux®). In this case, the Linux® operating system is a key component of the migration, and having a sufficient number of copies of the Linux® operating system available for installation is essential in implementing the migration.
During a typical migration, each component is ordered and received into inventory at which time it can be deployed to a target. For example, for a migration from a token ring network to an ethernet network, each target will require installation of an ethernet card. To this extent, ethernet cards will be ordered for deployment to each target. For a large entity, such as International Business Machines of Armonk, N.Y.(IBM), the migration may take several months. In this case, it is desirable to periodically order and receive only a portion of the total components that will be required for the migration. This enables the entity to benefit from any drops in pricing, newly introduced products, etc., as well as spread the cost for the components and the migration over time.
In order to effectively order the components in this manner, an accurate forecast for the number of components that will be required needs to be maintained. For example, for each component, a total amount expected to be required for a particular time period (e.g., a month) can be maintained. Based on the forecast data, components can be ordered to ensure that a sufficient number are in inventory for deployment. To this extent, the order can be based on a lead time for the order to be processed. For example, a particular component may have a lead time of three months. As a result, an order would need to be placed to ensure sufficient inventory for at least the next three months.
For the migration, different individuals may be generating the forecasts, ordering the components, monitoring inventory, overseeing the entire migration, etc. As a result, various individuals may be changing forecast data, inventory data, and the like. In order to better understand the current values for forecast and/or inventory data, as well as any discrepancies that may be included, it would be beneficial to view a history of the modifications to the values for this data.
To date, there is no inventory management solution that displays history data for inventory data and/or forecast data for a particular component during a migration. To this extent, a need exists for an improved solution for managing the inventory of component(s) for the migration, in which a history of modifications to the inventory data and/or the forecast data of one or more components during the migration is obtained and an activity display is generated for displaying the history data to a user.